Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/389

 ii s. iv. NOV. 11, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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September, 1773, in the company of his friends Chase Price and John Churchill, the poet's brother. She was then living in Black and White Lands Lane, Chelsea, and it is worthy of notice that Casanova took a house in Chelsea for his Mademoiselle. Wilkes and Marianne became great friends, and he soon began to dine very often at Madame de Charpillon's home, where the party usually included Mile, de Charpillon, a Mile. Julie, and a Miss Retsell. About November, 1773, the De Charpillons appear to have re- moved to 30, Titchfield Street, and it seems probable, judging from her letters, that the girl was Wilkes' s mistress until May, 1777, when the pair had a violent quarrel. Some corroborative evidence of this liaison is offered by Henry Angelo, who states that one of Wilkes' s lady-loves was a Madame Champignon (sic). (' Remin. of Henry Angelo,' 1904, i. 42, ii. 42.) The Morning Post also, on 4 July, 1777, has a paragraph to the effect that " the dress of the Alderman and that also of his French favourite has of late much improved." In spite of the quarrel, Wilkes and the lady corresponded until November of that year. Her letters are written in French and are very illiterate. Mile, de Charpillon seems to have resided also in Winchester Row, near Paddington, and at No. 13, Upper Seymour Street. Her friend Miss Maria Retsell lived at No. 34, Little Castle Street, Oxford Road ; and the address of another of her friends, one Mrs. Chanu, was 46, Rupert Street. These names and addresses may be useful for the purpose of identification, for I am anxious to discover w r hether Casanova's La Charpillon and Wilkes' s De Charpillon were one and the same person. At present, one fact only seems to associate the two ladies they were both living with a grandmother, a mother, and an aunt.

While walking with his friend Vicenzo Martinelli near Piccadilly, Casanova declares that he witnessed an incident which Horace Walpole had related in a letter to Mann on 1 September, 1750, thirteen years before the memoirist visited London. Casanova's account will be found in the Rozez edition, v. 469, and in the Gamier edition, vi. 461. To save time I merely quote from Walpole' s
 * Letters' (Toynbee), iii. 14 :

" They have put in the papers a good story made on White's : a man dropped down dead at the door, was carried in ; the club immediately made bets whether he was dead or not, and when they were going to bleed him, the wagerers for his death interposed, and said it would affect the fairness of the bet."

Casanova's story, which is substantially the same, has been translated by MB. RICHARD EDGCUMBE at 8 S. xi. 44. Either the adventurer has borrowed Walpole' s story, which Martinelli may have related, to him, or the same incident occurred twice^ in the space of thirteen years. It is more reasonable to believe that Casanova is- speaking from hearsay.

The dinner at M. Guerchy's, where- Casanova states he met the Chevalier d'Eon^ whom he took to be a woman in man's clothes (Gamier ed., vi. 356), must have- taken place between 17 October and 2& October, 1763, for it was not until the former- date that the French Ambassador arrived in London, and D'Eon dined with Guerchy for the last time on the latter date. (See ' D'Eon de Beaumont,' by Homberg and Jousselin, Martin Seeker, p. 87.)

In the Gamier edition, vi. 439, Casanova says he was riding to Kingston when he had a fall from his horse at the door of Miss Chudleigh's house, but in the Rozez edition,. v. 465, the accident is alleged to have hap- pened " vis-a-vis du palais du due de King- ston." This, of course, must have been Kingston House, near the Prince's Gate into Hyde Park, where Miss Chudleigh was- living with the duke at the time. She witnessed the scene from the window, and had the fallen horseman carried indoors.

One evening at Covent Garden the singer Ferdinando Tenducci introduced Casanova to " sa femme legitime dont il avait deux enfants " (Garnier, vii. 43). Probably Casa- nova was imposed upon, and the children were not Tenducci' s. Three years later, on 19 August, 1766, Tenducci went through the marriage ceremony at Cork with Dorothea Maunsell, and the marriage was declared null and void in November, 1 775. (See ' Trials for Divorce,' S. Bladon, 1780, vol. vii.)

" Le general Bekw Anglais qui com-

mandait le regiment du feld-marechal air service du roi de Prusse " (Garnier, vi. 469),, would seem to be Major-General John Beck- with, who, according to the ' D.N.B.,' " commanded the 20th Regt. at the battle of Minden and the brigade of grenadiers and highlanders in the Seven Years' War." He was the father of Sir George and Sir Thomas Sydney Beckwith, two distin- guished soldiers. Carlyle refers twice to a Col. Beckwith.

Casanova says that Mile. La Charpillon lived in " Danemark Street, Soho." He is mistaken. Denmark Street is in the parish of St. Giles. HORACE BLEACKLEY.